Dear little Gloria - home at last

On arrival at El Refugio - so happy to be saved!

So pretty and looking so much younger than her eleven years.

I'm tempted to call her 'my little Gloria' though of course she isn't mine really. But Diana and I rescued her in September, along with Muffin, when we went to the nasty killing station at Canes. We couldn't take many and as always it was a searing experience. Indeed I have never hugged Gloria nor Muffin. I could only talk to them through the bars of their cage as the 'authorities' said they could not be released straight away. By the time they got to the Refugio I was already back in England.

But there's always a very special bond with the dogs you have taken from the killing station. It nearly compensates for the sorrow about those you left behind. Months later I am still haunted by the little black and white dog in the next cage. And the puppies, and of course darling Hobie whom we couldn't save.

I was amazed when I saw Gloria on the website and saw she was an oldie - already eleven years old. She didn't seem old at all, she looked like a much younger dog. Muffin was reserved almost straight away though he hasn't left the Refugio yet. I kept an anxious eye on the site and the database to see what was happening with them both. And then, looking at Ineke's splendid blog last week, reading about the arrivals at Eindhoven, who should I see. Gloria!

So she's home at last. In a forever home where she will be loved and cherished and not thrown callously into a killing station by an uncaring boss. She must have been in a family before because she was well cared for, not the bedraggled heap of misery that we see in many abandoned dogs. Despite the traumas and separation she has been through, Gloria is an affectionate, loving dog. You only have to look at the pictures taken the day she arrived at the Refugio. So happy and accepting.

And now she's home. So lovely to see. I hope she'll have a wonderful life. I'm sure she will.